Yoritomo established Japan's first shogunate here after winning the Genpei War, and for nearly 150 years Kamakura functioned as the country's de facto capital, rivaling Kyoto in power if not in courtly elegance. The Hojo regents who succeeded Yoritomo built the Five Great Zen Temples -- a ranked network of monasteries that doubled as government ministries, distributing laws and monitoring provincial conditions through their nationwide web of affiliated temples. Zen Buddhism found its deepest roots in Japanese soil here, imported directly from Song Dynasty China by monks like Rankei Doryu, who founded Kencho-ji in 1253. The city's oldest temple, Sugimoto-dera, dates back over 1,200 years. At its peak, the shogunate's reach extended from these forested valleys to every corner of the Japanese archipelago.

The Great Buddha of Kamakura sits cross-legged and serene in the grounds of Kotoku-in, thirteen meters tall and weighing roughly 93 tonnes of cast bronze. Originally housed inside a grand wooden hall, the statue has sat outdoors since a tsunami swept the building away in 1498. Typhoons and earthquakes had already destroyed the hall repeatedly through the 14th and 15th centuries, but the bronze figure endured every blow. It is one of the handful of images that has come to represent Japan in the world's imagination -- this giant Amida Buddha meditating beneath open sky, rain streaking down its weathered green patina. The statue dates from around 1252, making it a contemporary of the city's greatest temples. The 1923 Great Kanto Earthquake destroyed its stone base, which was repaired in 1925, and further stabilization work on the neck came in 1960-61 to protect against future seismic events.

Kamakura's geography defined both its military strength and its vulnerability. The seven mountain passes -- called the Seven Mouths -- were carved through surrounding hills as the only land routes into the city. Warriors controlled these narrow cuts for centuries. But the sea, which protected Kamakura's southern flank, could also turn hostile. The 1923 Great Kanto Earthquake sent the ocean receding at unprecedented speed before a wall of water more than seven meters high crashed back ashore, drowning residents and crushing others beneath waterborne debris. Large sections of shoreline slid into the sea while the beach itself was pushed upward, exposing wide expanses of sand where only a narrow strip had existed before. The total death toll from earthquake, tsunami, and fire in Kamakura exceeded 2,000. Much of the city's architectural heritage was devastated, though the great temples and shrines, some founded centuries earlier, have since been painstakingly restored.

Walk from Yuigahama Beach toward Tsurugaoka Hachimangu, the grand shrine that symbolizes the city, and you pass through three towering torii gates along Wakamiya Oji Avenue, its boulevard lined with cherry trees. Riders once dismounted at Geba Yotsukado in deference to the war god Hachiman. The shrine sits at the avenue's terminus, but the spiritual landscape fans out in every direction. Kencho-ji, ranked first among the Five Great Zen Temples, still functions as a Rinzai training monastery. Tokei-ji served for centuries as a refuge for abused women. At Zeniarai Benzaiten Shrine, visitors wash their coins in spring water, believing it will multiply their wealth. And tucked into hillside caves called yagura, medieval warriors and priests rest in burial chambers carved from the soft limestone that forms these surrounding ridges -- a burial practice unique to Kamakura that remains one of its most haunting features.

The railroad reached Kamakura in 1890, extending from Ofuna and bringing tourists and new residents who discovered what the Meiji-era Japanese already knew: this city's cultural assets, its beach, and the mystique surrounding its name made it irresistible. Today the Enoshima Electric Railway rattles along the coast from Kamakura Station to Fujisawa, its single-car trains running parallel to the surf along stretches of track so close to the water you can taste the salt air. Hase Station sits nearest to the Great Buddha. The city holds over a hundred festivals each January alone, as temples, shrines, fishermen, and businesses pray for safety and prosperity in the new year. Kamakura is no longer a military capital, no longer the fourth-largest city in the world. But its temples endure, its passes remain, and the hills still close around it like cupped hands holding something precious.